In my youth, my dad and I didn’t have to be concerned about fishing in high water because our favorite trout streams were closed through winter. There were times during the trout season, though, when the low-flow section of the Feather River was anything but that or when an exceptionally snowy winter produced heavy amounts of spring runoff after Opening Day. Even then, dad would take me to the North Fork of the Feather, because the staircase of dams there controlled the flows and provided good fishing opportunities when other rivers were blown out.
Today, many rivers are now open year-round, and depending on the amount of precipitation in Northern California, they can vary greatly in flows and turbidity. In the past, I did not let high and turbid water prevent me from fishing. I was taught to fish the side water in high flows, water where a trout does not have to work so hard in its holding post. The hydraulics of high water are powerful enough to move boulders, large trees, and whatever else may lie in its path, and fish avoid the raging currents, taking refuge along the banks to escape the extreme conditions. Even then, water temperatures are an issue, and trout from each watershed react differently to an artificial fly in cold water, depending on their acclimation to such frigid conditions through generations of offspring in their environment.
The winter of 2016/17 was a graduate school for many longtime fly anglers. With rivers blown out for months, we were forced to adjust to the conditions and relearn how to dissect a roaring river into fishable sections. It also was a real eye-opener when it came to trout behavior under such conditions. Many anglers learned that the impossible is very possible and that certain rivers fish better than others when big water races downstream. The Truckee River is a prime example. It not only gave fly anglers some hope last year, but confidence that we could carry with us while plying other waters under extreme conditions.
Causes of High Water
Major weather events affect water levels in rivers, streams, creeks, reservoirs, and even natural lakes. Quick-moving storms can produce heavy amounts of precipitation in a short time. Last year was by no means the first with a series of weather systems that brought intense rainfall, but we had not witnessed such conditions in a long time. From January 7 through January 9, forecasts called for 10 to 15 inches of precipitation in areas such as Grass Valley, Yosemite, and the Truckee-Tahoe Basin. In one day, the Truckee River went from 600 cubic feet per second to 15,000 cfs, just below major flood stage level as recorded by the U.S. Geological Service gauge in Reno, Nevada. Flooding was inevitable, and large woody debris threatened bridges and other structures in the watershed. Another round of the wet season brought a knockout punch to the Truckee, and there were several more rounds to go before the fight was over.
When rain from intense storms falls on a deep snowpack, the effects are even worse. During last winter, the Sierra had a snowpack with a depth and water content that boded well for the dry season that lay ahead. Then the famed “Pineapple Express” weather systems from the southern Pacific Ocean brought heavy rains to the snowpack at higher elevations. When the runoff from rain on snow encounters ground that is already thoroughly saturated in the foothills, there is only one place for all that water to go, and that is downhill, to the Central Valley. With our rapidly changing environment, it’s likely we’ll witness many more Sierra rain-on-snow events in the future.
Once winter fades and the warming of the land begins, springtime in the Sierra means the annual runoff is about to commence. How quickly snowpack melts varies greatly with ambient air temperatures and the intensity of the wind. It can be quick, drawn out, or somewhere in between. And if reservoir levels are high, once a lake is full, releases will be inevitable. Water releases from late spring runoff affect fly anglers more than winter storms because the regulated flows may stretch well into May and June and can have an impact on prime-time fishing.
When summer arrives in the Sierra, one other cause of temporary high water can exist — summer monsoons that gain strength and water content as they race up the Sierra range from the south and park themselves over the northern Sierra. These storms often temporarily increase water levels. Most fly anglers seek shelter during these times, but I have found that some of the best dry-fly fishing can happen as a fast-moving thunderstorm exits the area, leaving cloud cover and just a sprinkle of precipitation in which mayflies thrive. Summer monsoons also flush terrestrials into the river and rejuvenate the water with additional oxygen. Without notice, Mother Nature can take away ideal fishing conditions, but she can also provide fantastic opportunities for fly anglers who can adapt.
Safety and High Water
Safety is the number one priority when fishing high water. Swift currents can quickly carry you downstream into life-threatening rapids. Ice-cold water can literally suck the breath out of you. Muscles contract, and your limbs become numb, making self-rescue more difficult. Hypothermia can set in even after you have retreated from the water, quickly causing a loss of coordination and low energy, a weak pulse, and at the extreme, loss of consciousness.
Being educated about fishing high water and making smart decisions with safety as your principal goal is your first line of defense. There is no need to wade far out into the water to make a productive presentation. Last spring, the farthest my guests and I waded out was up to our ankles. A large percentage of the fish were stationed right off the bank in three to six feet of water, out of the rushing flows.
Even though you’re wading shallow water, be prepared in case you fall in. A snugly fitted wading belt will prevent excessive amounts of water from entering your waders, and water in your waders adds weight like an anchor. Layer up with synthetic fleece or wool base layers. Even when wet, these types of clothing will keep you insulated and warm. During cold and wet conditions, wearing cotton is foolish. It is said to be the cloth of death in cold environments, because it will not retain warmth when wet, and it retains water. If you’re serious about your safety, wear a personal flotation device. I was impressed last spring when many of my clients wore PFDs while fishing. If you do take a header and become wet, you must change into warm dry clothes back at your vehicle as soon as possible, and you may need to thaw out in your vehicle with the heater cranked on full before you can even attempt to drive home safely.
My best piece of advice, though, is one my dad taught me long ago: use the buddy system. Bring along a trusted friend who is well-versed in dealing with adverse conditions in the wilderness. You watch his back, and he watches yours, with each of you being ready to rescue the other if need be.
Trout and Turbid Water
One advantage that turbid water creates is that it allows an angler to get much closer to fish without being detected. It also allows the use of larger, stronger tippets. But trout can see much better in mud-stained water than you would think. They have to, in order to be able to survive. There are other sensors in a trout’s body that allow them to distinguish food from a piece of bark. That’s not to say they won’t nibble something just to make sure it isn’t edible — say, a fly pattern. When their visual field is reduced, trout rely on the sense of smell to distinguish drifting food items. However, their most valuable sensory input for detecting not only food, but predators and other dangers, is the lateral line on each side of the body. The lateral lines pick up vibrations such as those produced by a struggling baitfish — or heavy footsteps from an angler on the bank or in the river. These vibrations are transmitted through nerve endings to the inner ear. When combined together, these three sensory inputs enable a trout to feed efficiently in a wide variety of conditions, including highly turbid water. The unwritten rule that steelheaders use is that if you are standing in the river up to your knees and cannot see your feet, it’s not clear enough to fish. I think differently now, and if there is at least a foot of visibility, I’m going fishing.
To appeal to a trout’s visual sense in turbid water, a fly that has a stark contrast to the surrounding dark water will work best, because it will be easier for a trout to identify it. Multicolored flies do not work well, because the wavelengths of light they reflect are scattered, making it difficult for trout to see them clearly. Simple patterns with a solid color work better when fishing off-color water. A black Slumpbuster, a white Conehead Bunny Leech, or a brown Rubber Legs Stonefly would be great choices.
As for taking advantage of a trout’s lateral line when fishing turbid water, nymphs rarely have enough mass to be noticed. Streamer flies, however, will be picked up by a trout’s lateral line as they push water with a bulky, full head or when the materials give off vibrations.
The Water to Target
During high flows, target soft water with depth. The most productive type of water during period of high flows is the deeper, slack side water, especially at the head or the tailout of major runs. Water with slower flows and depth is where trout will not have to expend a lot of energy to rest comfortably. As I’ve said, anywhere along the bank is a good place to start, but keep in mind that as water levels rise, small willow bushes and streamside foliage get covered up, so it’s best to cast out at least four feet while standing on dry ground. Snags will occur if you do not cast out far enough.
Once this area is thoroughly covered, casting out farther to the main seam between fast and slow water is the obvious choice. Work each section of water slowly and methodically, making sure that you cover every inch of holding water.
Trout love large boulders because they provide fish with cover, protection, and slower (more comfortable) water upstream in the hydraulic cushion that forms in front of a boulder, as well as downstream behind it. In high flows, your favorite boulders to fish may be entirely submerged, but the trout will still be there. Look for diffused currents on the surface that have slower water downstream, which is the sign of a large boulder just under the surface. If you are familiar with a series of rock formations and the slots between them, seek these out. You need only to adjust your rigging and depth of presentation to take into account the higher flows.
Side channels are another type of water to target during high flows. They have less current, and if sufficient holding water and sources of food are available, the trout will be there. Most likely these side channels were dry before the water rose, so there will be small bushes and other debris waiting to snag your flies. Look for the tips of willows protruding from the surface of the water and avoid the area around them. The most productive section of a side channel is where it returns to the main stem of the river. Here you will find a transition zone of shallow to deep water where trout find cover and food. The seam that is created here can extend farther downstream, too, so when nymphing, it’s best to start downstream of the seam and work your way up to where the two flows meet. If you are swinging streamers, start at the confluence of the two flows and work downstream.
Short-Line Nymphing
The most obvious way to fish high flows is short-line nymphing. You’re not going to get long, drag-free dry-fly drifts in high-flow currents, and the fish are hunkered down, not looking up. But they still have to eat.
This technique has many different names: high-stick nymphing, tight-lining, Euro nymphing, Czech nymphing, and on and on. The names suggest a European origin, but in fact it may have developed right here in our own backyard, in Northern California, by a native Wintu tribe member named Ted Towendolly. (See “Ted Towendolly and the Origins of Short-Line Nymphing,” by Eric Palmer, in the March/April 2015 issue of California Fly Fisher. A longer version of the article is on the Granite Bay Fly Casters’ website, http://gbflycasters.org/#, under their “Library” tab.) It’s actually the different French, Spanish, Polish, or Czech styles of leader construction that have led to the “Euro” designation. A common aspect they often share is the use of a brightly colored piece of monofilament at the butt that acts as an aid for detecting strikes. When making drifts, the “sighter” will twitch, stop, or move upstream when a trout takes your fly. Set the hook at any unusual movement by the sighter by making a sweeping downstream motion to the side.
Below the sighter, a 6-to-9 foot length of 8-to-12-pound fluorocarbon is used down to a knot, tippet ring, or a small swivel. Above this connection is where added weight is placed on the leader. Below this junction is a very short section of slightly thinner-diameter tippet down to two or three flies. (See the top illustration.) A simpler rig that my father and I used in the 1970s consisted of 2 feet of 15-pound orange Amnesia knotted to a 7-1/2-foot tapered leader with one heavy fly and added split shot. We caught many trout back then with this setup, but advances in materials and equipment have made possible the modern rigs and techniques we use today.
The European influence on shortline nymphing has been with advanced leader formulas. When comparing a Czech short-line nymphing rig with my standard short-line leader discussed above (see illustrations), you will notice the Czech rig has a longer leader down to the sighter tippet. The reason for this longer leader is to let you fish only with monofilament extending beyond the rod tip. Fly line is heavy and can pull back on the leader, creating unwanted drag and slack, whereas monofilament is lighter, stiffer, and more sensitive than fly line, enhancing contact with the flies and a providing a better drift. The maximum length of the Czech short-line nymphing leader shown in the illustration is 18.3 feet, which is advantageous with 11-foot to 12-foot rods, and also for extended drifts. My personal Czech leader’s maximum length is 15 feet, which I use with a 10.5-foot rod; it’s perfect for our western-style rivers.
With so many short-line nymphing leader combinations available to the fly angler, it really comes down to experimentation and personal preference. Each rig will have advantages and disadvantages; what’s perhaps most important is the confidence with which you fish your rig.
Execution remains the same, no matter the rig: a load-and-lob flip cast upstream with a fixed amount of line, then a drag-free drift though a small section of water. (The “load” is simply the friction of the water, often enhanced by the current, taking slack out of the line and leader.) Three elements will affect your drift while short-line nymphing: depth, angle, and the “drop.” Depth is controlled by raising and lowering the rod with a fixed amount of line from the rod tip down to the bottom fly. With my rig, from the bottom of the sighter down to my bottom fly is 8 feet, so if my sighter is elevated three feet above the water’s surface, I can calculate that my trailing fly is 5 feet down.
The depth, though, can be greatly affected by the angle at which the leader drifts in the water beyond the vertical. The angle is determined by the strength of the current that is pushing on the rig while it is drifting. If the current is very strong, it will tilt the angle toward the horizontal and push the rig slightly higher in the water column, creating a shorter distance from the surface down to the bottom fly. However, the angle can be manipulated by the drop, that is, by the amount of weight added to the leader. More weight will minimize the deviation of the rig from the vertical. It is not uncommon to use several pieces of heavy split shot on your leader during heavy flows. But to complicate matters, each section of a river will be different, and taking the time to fine-tune your rig to each section of a run, adjusting tippet length and adding or subtracting weight, will often dictate your success.
A few simple rules govern how to adjust your rig for the depth of the water and the current speed. For shallow water with a lighter current, use lightly weighted flies, fewer split shot, and elevate the sighter high above the water’s surface to the intended depth of the targeted water. For deeper water with a heavier flow, employ a tuck cast for vertical entry of your flies, use heavier fly patterns, add more split shot to the leader, and lower the sighter down to the surface.
When fishing nymphs, make several passes, starting in the middle of the water column, and with each additional series of drifts, drop the level by one foot until you are bouncing the fly on the bottom. With short-line nymphing, you are limited in the amount of distance you can cover. Indicator nymphing might produce longer drifts, but I have found that my clients lose far more flies that way, because with a floating indicator, you are not in direct contact with your flies. By the time your indicator dips below the surface, your flies most certainly will be snagged among the cobbles. Short-line nymphing takes many hours of practice, and the best practice is to fish the rig as much as possible in a variety of conditions. Once mastered, an angler will truly understand the Zen of short-line nymphing.
Equipment for short-line nymphing is straightforward. A 10-to-12-foot rod allows the angler to reach out to pockets and seams that would be out of reach with a standard 9-foot rod, and those extra feet make a world of difference. The longer length also helps keep the upper section of the leader off the water for a straighter angle into the water, which improves sensitivity to strikes. For most trout rivers, 4-weight to 6-weight rods are ideal. A short-line nymphing rod should have a soft tip for sensitivity and to protect light tippets. A beefy butt section will help fighting larger fish and tire them out more quickly for safer release. The rod should load easily, whether set up with a light or a heavy rig. It should also track well while making casts so your aim is more consistent. A reel that matches the rod is important for creating a balanced outfit. When laying the rod-with-reel in the palm of your hand, the rod tip should be slightly elevated from a level plane. This allows you to fish for many hours without fatigue. If your reel is too light, try counterbalancing the reel seat with added spacers available from some rod manufacturers. As for fly lines, because the line rarely protrudes much from the tip of the rod while making short-line presentations, an older, used weight-forward line will work just fine.
During the high water of 2017, a regular client who had never tried short-line nymphing until then caught and released nine trout from 17 inches to 21 inches in a very short time. He was fishing the slow-moving water of a hole the size of a small compact car. That experience was a revelation for the both of us: where there is a prime lie of deeper soft water, there often are many trout in the same spot. If you hook one, you can expect to hook many more, and short-line nymphing is the way to do it.
Fishing Streamers
Swinging streamer patterns is also a great way to fish high water. Trout are more apt to see your offering. It’s an active style of fly fishing, yet does not require the taxing concentration of short-line nymphing. While swinging streamers down a run, an angler has time to look around and enjoy the scenery. The strike is unmistakable when trout eat streamers. And those trout tend to be big and heavy apex predators.
The basic presentation when swinging a streamer starts at the head of a run just downstream of a transition from riffles to deeper water. Quarter casts across the run slightly downstream and allow the fly to swing across the river. As the fly stops swinging, it will come into the side water and hang briefly before being stripped upstream. Make a series of casts from near to far, covering an entire section of the river. Then move 10 feet downstream and begin the process all over again. The rod should be held in a level position so there is a downward bend in the line as it enters the water. This is important, because the slight amount of slack will act as a cushion for critical knots when a large trout grabs your fly with a hard hit. Usually the hook set just involves raising the rod while maintaining tension on the fly line, because most fish tend to set the hook themselves.
There are many different techniques that can be used to manipulate the fly as it swings. Simply stripping the fly is one way. When stripping streamers in cold water, though, it’s best to slow down your retrieve and use periods of a brief pause in between strips. Another technique is to strip a few inches, then let the current pull back out the line that you stripped in. I like this method because if a trout is following through the swing, the fly drifts back toward the fish and puts it right in its face. You can also cast upstream into holding water and strip the fly downstream. When small minnows and juvenile fish flee from a predator, they take the easiest route to escape, and that is downstream, with the current.
Streamers also can be presented using short-line nymphing techniques. The same principles apply in making a dead drift. Using a streamer allows you to animate the fly during the drift, making it pulse and move like a living creature by raising and lowering the rod, as if you were fishing a jig. Extremely heavy streamers are best when using the shortline nymphing technique, and just one fly is all you need.
There are two ways that I rig my leaders while swinging streamers. I highly recommend using a specialty line that is engineered for casting large, heavy flies — a weight-forward floating line with a compact head and short, powerful taper. The first setup use a 7-1/2-foot leader tapered to 0X. I clip off the first 3 feet of the factory leader and tie on a size 14 barrel swivel, then add an additional 3 feet of tippet from 8 to 15 pounds. I use the highest pound-test rating possible, because the fish are not going to see it when chasing down a large streamer pattern. I then tie on a very heavy fly. I tie my streamers with commercially-available premolded tungsten heads that come in shapes such as minnow or sculpin.
My second rig uses 7-foot to 15-foot lengths of factory-made sink tips with loop-to-loop connectors. These are available in different drop rates. I find that a drop of 5 or 7 inches per second is the best rate for high water and fast currents. I place a size 14 barrel swivel at the end of the sink tip, then add 3 to 4 feet of tippet. With this rig, I use a fly of medium to heavy weight, depending on the type of water I’m targeting.
A good rod for presenting streamers is a 9-foot or 10-foot 7-weight or 8-weight with a smooth fast action that allows you to target small sections of water with precision at a distance. The butt and midsection should be beefy enough to throw large flies and to fight big fish, and the rod should be able to carry a long length of fly line and a heavy fly while false casting without being overloaded. A fighting butt is a nice addition for applying leverage when playing fish for long periods of time.
Water, Water Everywhere
After years of drought, high water can be a blessing, not a curse. There is no need to hang up the fly rod during periods of high and stained water. Depending on the watershed, both short-line nymphing and fishing streamers can be very productive if the trout are actively feeding. My time on the water has suggested guidelines that will eliminate much of the guesswork for you. Ultimately though, there’s no substitute for on-the-water experience. Be safe, fish the edges and soft water, but get out there and fish with a buddy, even when the conditions seem less than ideal. You may have the stream to yourselves, too.
Go-To Flies for Fishing High Water
The flies listed below have tying instructions that you can find on the Internet, and some might be available at fly shops. The Squirmy Worm, by the way, was featured in the January/February 2018 issue of California Fly Fisher.
Fly Selection for Short-Line Nymphing
Jimmy Legs Stoneflies, size 6, 8, and 10, in black, brown, or Golden Stone
Jumbo Johns, size 8 and 10, in black, brown, and olive
Two Bit Stones, size 8 and 10, Golden Stone
Beaded San Juan Worms, size 12, in red, pink, and flesh color
Squirmy Worms, size 12, in red, pink, and flesh color
Atomic Worms, size 8 and 10 in red and orange
Egg patterns, 10 millimeter, size 12, in natural roe, peachy king, and egg yolk
Fly Selection for Swinging Streamers
Sculpin patterns, size 4, 6, and 8
Slumpbusters, size 6 and 8, in black, white, burnt orange, and olive
Barely Legals, size 4, 6, and 8, in yellow and brown
JJ Specials, size 6 and 8, in yellow and brown
Crayfish patterns, size 6, 8, and 10
Bunny Leeches, size 4, 6, and 8 in black, white, burnt orange, and olive
— Jon Baiocchi
